Tears
by Fey Phantom
Summary: A short one shot of what happened when Vlad attacked Danny in TUE. Obviously contains TUE spoilers. Please R


_Disclaimer_: I do not own Danny Phantom or any of its characters. They belong to the awesome Butch Hartman and Nickelodeon.

_A/N_: Rated K+ because I don't think anything TUE related can be rated any lower, but, meh, there's only a little violence -_shrugs-_ Anyway, I've been sitting on this idea for a while and finally got fed up and just decided to write it, so, here it is! This is my version of what happened in TUE when Vlad came at Danny with the Ghost Gauntlets. It's written in Vlad's POV. Please R&R! I'd love to hear what you have to say about it.

-

**Tears**

By Fey Phantom

-

I hear him come in. I am sitting in my chair, as always, watching the monitors which display the conditions of the remaining human cities. Amity Park has fallen only a little while ago. "Come to kick a defenseless old man while he's down?" I ask.

"Defenseless? Old?" The voice I hear is not the one I was expecting. He steps closer to me and I turn to see his face. "Man, what happened to you?" Mixed emotions run through my mind. He is not the Phantom who torments the Earth and Ghost Zone. He is an image from the past. He is what Phantom once was, before I foolishly tore him from Daniel's body.

"I could ask you the very same question, my boy," I say and raise an eyebrow. "Although perhaps I should ask," I stand up from my chair, leaning on my walking stick, "what hasn't happened to you – yet," I add bitterly. I decide to tell him the story of his life that has yet to occur. I get lost in the memories as I retell the story I once played over and over in my mind ten years ago, wishing that it would change. But it never did, it was just the way things were meant to be. As I tell the story, the boy listens intently, only asking me a question when I feel I can go no further with the story. "Some things, my boy, are better left unsaid," I reply. My mind forces me to remember his face as he was murdered by his ghost self. I remember taking him into my arms after, whispering to the air, praying that there was some way to bring him back. But I never could change the past.

"If any good came out of this it's that ten years without ghost powers gave me the chance to see what a fool I'd been." I'm looking at a picture from college. I pick it up and thumb over Jack's image. We were all happy back then. But I was a fool and blamed Jack for stealing Maddie when it was clearly her choice. I should have let her go. I should have been a better friend. I should have been the best man at my best friend's wedding. But I chose to be bitter and in the end lost out on all those years I could've been happy.

"Maybe that's all anybody needs – a second chance," I hear him say. "You still have those ghost gauntlets?" A sudden realization comes to me.

I rush about, looking for my invention. Danny Phantom is explaining his predicament about a time medallion being infused inside of him, but I only half listen. Inside my head, I'm formulating my own plan. Maybe there's something that I can do after all. Maybe I have been given the chance to make everything all right again. If this works, none of this will ever come to pass. I fix the gauntlets on my hands as he finishes his story. "So you say there's a medallion lodged within you," I say, repeating his words, "keeping you routed in this time period?" I want to get my facts straight. He is definitely from the past, before any of it has happened. My plan may just work.

"Yes. And I can't reach it. But I'm guessing if you could reach into me and rip out my humanity – which by the way sounds totally gross – you can get the medallion out too." He sure does sound optimistic. "Then I'll pop back to my present like Tucker and Sam did."

But my plan sounds much more solid. I raise my hands. "Or I could just destroy you now and prevent this future." I trigger the nails of the gauntlets to spring forth. "Didn't think of that, did you?" I say with craze. This boy in front of me, Danny Phantom, everything was his fault. I lost everyone I ever held dear to me and my life fell apart. If he ever went back, the same thing would happen all over again. I curse this life I live. Here is my chance to change it. Without Danny Phantom, none of this will ever come to pass. I will destroy him.

I swipe at Danny Phantom and my nails connect. He screams in pain and falls backward, still screaming. It almost feels good to know I can still cause Phantom pain, after all the pain he's put _me_ through. Then, a bright light shines in my eyes. I wince as Phantom in front of me transforms into his human self again. He holds his stomach, still gasping with pain. There are tears in his eyes.

My hands fall to my sides. The rage from a moment ago seems to have left me. How could I have ever wished harm upon this boy? And after he went through so much… but he hasn't yet. He can still be saved. He looks up at me, fear evident in his face. He thinks I will kill him but instead, something happens to me that hasn't happened for ten years; I feel a tear trace its way down my face.

The last time I cried, I wept over the body of the boy in front of me.

And I was going to kill him just now.

I fall to my knees at the sight of him. I feel a mixture of sadness and joy. Here he is, the boy I thought of as a son, alive and well, still able to feel happy. And he can change the future. He knows what happened. He still has time to stop it. And I can change the future too, not by killing him, but by helping him. I shuffle closer to him and wrap my arms around him, hugging him as a father for the first time in my life. But I'm crying as well. I'm crying for everything that happened. I'm crying for the chance for it to start over again. I'm crying with hope. "Daniel, promise me you'll never become evil, you'll never become _him_?"

I feel him shake a little, surprised by my question. Then he relaxes again. "I promise." I smile, tears still falling.

"Then let's get you back there and change the future." I hug him tightly one last time then pull back and look at him. He looks gallant. He truly is the hero he always fought to be.

---------------------------------------

So, what did ya think? Good, bad, improbable? Please review and tell me! All comments welcome!

.:Fey Phantom:.


End file.
